


Chess Pieces

by Synapse



Category: Star Wars: A New Dawn - John Jackson Miller, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: (but it helps), (it won't help), Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chess, F/M, First Meetings, Fluff, Motorcycles, no knowledge of A New Dawn is needed for this, you don't need to know about chess either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 18:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synapse/pseuds/Synapse
Summary: Kanan's life as a barista and explosives hauler isn't half as fun as it sounds, especially in the ill-favored city of Gorse. A gifted motorcyclist, a white pawn, and a series of coincidences promise to change that.





	Chess Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Took a while, but it's finally here!

The Asteroid Belt is not the cleanest establishment, nor the prettiest. The employees aren't the friendliest, and the customers are often far from savory. But- as most coffee shops do- it smells amazing.

Also, the job pays well (for a barista) and free, fresh coffee is involved. How could Kanan say no?

While not the cleanest or the most handsome of places, Okadiah’s small shop is still better than your average roadside coffee place. Warm lights illuminate rugged yet comfortable cushions. Their golden glow shines off the chestnut and russet tables, nicked and dented from use. On the rare days that the sun deigns to show its face, the large windows supplement artificial lighting. In a less frequented corner of the shop, an old chess set rests. It's rarely touched by customers (few know how to play) but sun-bleached and worn with age all the same, like everything else and the proprietor. The shop’s worn impression, Okadiah claims, is part of the charm. Kanan’s not sure if he agrees, but at least it’s better than the dank and dungeon-like greys of so many “modern” places.

One day, after arriving a few minutes early to his shift, he wanders over to eye the little chess set. He- unlike most of Okadiah’s patrons- actually knows how the game works. Okadiah, for the few times they’ve played, claims Kanan is extraordinarily talented. (He's pretty sure that’s because the older man is terrible at anything involving strategy.) 

Chess pieces lay toppled on the board, and the rooks and bishops are swapped. The regal black king sits beside a cold white queen in the center of the board, leaving their partners abandoned at the sides, and pawns are strewn beside the checked battlefield in a messy pile. A long-suffering sigh escapes Kanan’s lips. He sets to work putting them back, though it's more for something to do (and to satisfy the part of his brain that can’t stop obsessing over the woeful state of the board) rather than to make it look better.

Once he's put the board to rights he turns to go, but it seems forlorn in wake of its misuse. Biting back another sigh, he takes up a cream-colored pawn and places it one space forward in his favorite opening move. Then a loud shout beckons from the back and he’s off running: work calls.

=====

On the road today he sees a woman on a motorcycle, silver helmet low over her face, and her lean body low over the matching silver bike. She drives with the inexplicable ease of a born racer, and darts around his hefty truck with such daring he’s left gaping in her wake.

Since when was there anyone who knew how to _ drive _in this place?

~~~

When Kanan returns through Gorse’s muggy evening air to the shop for his night shift and a bite to eat, he doesn’t take a second glance at the board. The next morning it catches his eye as he’s slinging his backpack over his shoulder, and he does a double-take. 

No one’s messed with it this time. But one of the black pawns has moved. 

He moves closer. The tiny pawn sits with an innocent air in its worn coal coat. To an inexperienced individual it would seem a random move. But already Kanan can see how the move could play out, and scenarios dart through his head as he considers the board. He leans down to pluck an ivory pawn from the board. For a moment all he does is hold it, studying its chipped finish. Then he sets it in his chosen place and goes to work.

=====

Silver Motorcycle hasn’t left.

He’d thought she would only be there in passing: what graceful racer would want anything to do with Gorse’s slow, clogged highways and explosive-haulers? Pothole-filled roads and bleached asphalt, combined with the ancient semis and compacts chugging along like rows of ugly snails and turtles, make it anything but appealing to even the lowliest of drivers. But no: she weaves and bobs once more through the traffic, graceful as a bird of prey in a flock of fat old pigeons. Kanan sees her for only a moment, but she occupies his mind for the rest of his trips that day, and he wonders if he’ll see her in the shop.

~~~

All thoughts of the mysterious silver biker disappear in the night’s rush. Order after order leaves him swamped; after nearly spilling hot coffee on his hand twice, he barely avoids decapitation from his coworker’s terrible aim with a breadknife. It doesn’t occur to him to check the chessboard until he’s climbing up to the tiny room that Okadiah rents to him for working at the shop. By then he’s so exhausted he decides to forget it until the morning.

So it is that five minutes before the shop opens he’s stumbling downstairs, bleary-eyed. After tying on his patched and worn apron he makes his way to the chessboard. And, oddly but surely enough, his opponent has struck again, little inky pawns standing lonesome on the board.

The manager unlocks the door as he returns to his place behind the counter, and he spends the rest of his hourlong shift contemplating a retort between rushed orders of black coffee and doughnuts. By the time he has to head out for his second job as an explosives hauler, he’s got his move figured out. Between pulling on his backpack and rushing out the door he returns to the board and moves his piece.

===== 

This time it’s her blaring horn that alerts him to her presence. He barely has enough time to swerve out of the way as some idiotic sleep-drunk driver nearly backends him. Silver Motorcycle weaves around them both and shoots on ahead, and he isn’t sure whether to swear at her or to applaud her brilliant maneuvering. He decides on a mixture of both and keeps driving.

~~~ 

When he escapes the evening humidity into the confines of the Belt, he heads straight for the board. And, yes, here is his shadowy adversary, another black piece shifting places- and to his silent delight it's exactly where he thought they would. He’s seen the strategy used before, and so he knows exactly where to place his piece. Whoever his opponent is, they must not be particularly experienced- but they do lend some interest to the monotony of the days, so he’s not complaining.

=====

Kanan’s found himself pulled toward individuals for all sorts of reasons, but never had he thought the way someone drove was all it would take for him to fall for them. Maybe he’s overthinking the whole thing, but all he knows is that he’s never wanted to talk to someone so badly because of their grace behind the wheel.

Silver Motorcycle is in the crowd of cars not once but twice today. He comes close to back-ending someone because he’s so occupied with her effortless movements as she slips between smoke-belching semis and rusted compacts. Even the filthy stream of oaths the driver throws at him can’t provoke him to answering.

The dreamlike state she’s put him into breaks when his manager notes his distracted air. It dissolves further at the sharp reminder that the contents of his hauler could demolish half the highway, and Kanan resolves to spend more time with his eyes on the road. 

~~~

It takes him less time than usual to bike back to the shop today, so he grabs a cup of chai tea and heads to the chess table. His invisible opponent isn’t present, but their mark is. 

He hadn't expected the move, but the maneuver isn’t a master’s. In fact it seems more for the sake of buying time. Kanan has no such problems or qualms and continues with his preplanned strategy, albeit with alterations to accommodate the unforeseen move. 

When the time comes for him to return to work, he leaves not with a sense of disappointment, but with the anticipation of tomorrow’s move.

=====

Silver Motorcycle isn’t on the highway today.

He tries to ignore the letdown. It’s for the best: he needs to be more focused on his driving. That doesn’t stop the plunge in his mood, nor does it prevent his angry snap at one of the “blaster” ordnance managers. The day ends in a bloody nose on his end and worse on the blaster’s. He argues to himself that Skelly got under the skin of every trucker. People had told him off more times than Kanan cares to count, and such an invasion of personal space had been bound to end in bloodshed. Skelly had been warned, and paid the price. 

None of it eases Kanan’s guilty wince as he watches his colleague stumble away.

===== 

The universe dislikes him as a general rule, but at this point it’s just being rude.

Not a single black piece has been touched, and he’s left to stalk behind the counter. Black coffee, black coffee, black coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee (what _ is _it with these miners and their coffee?), a short cold dinner, bed, and then he does it all over again.

=====

His sigh of relief is long but soft when he glimpses Silver Motorcycle’s agile form the next day. Today he makes a point of not paying too much attention to her, and he succeeds at least a little. What he can’t ignore is the absolute commotion at Cynda Mines as he turns into the unloading area. Miners, managers and unloaders are running wild and it takes him well over ten minutes to flag down someone to take his second load of cargo.

He’s not exactly sure what’s going on, but when he asks around all he gets are distracted waves and garbled exclamations. Eventually something about Skelly and a collapsed cavern emerges. It’s not enough for him to figure out what happened, so when a supervisor informs him he’s not needed for the rest of the day, he’s grateful to return to the shop.

~~~

With a cup of tea in hand, he slides into the chair at the chessboard and contemplates the newest black figure that is staring down his cream pawns. He grins and makes his move. Then, because there’s at least an hour until he’s due for his shift, he pulls out a copy of _ Moonraker _ and settles in to wait.

In the midst of his reading someone slides a phone between the pages of his book. Surprised at the method of interruption but not the occurrence itself, he looks up at the white-haired culprit.

“Pardon the interruption,” Okadiah says, “but what is all this about the mines?”

Kanan blinks and returns his attention to the phone. The title splashed across the top of an article in bold black letters reads: _ MINING ACCIDENT AT CYNDA MINES RESULTS IN SEVERE INJURIES, NEW SUPERINTENDENT THREATENING LAWSUIT _

“Wouldn’t we both like to know,” he grumbles, pushing the phone away. “Some crazy blaster pulled something.”

“You’d have to be crazy to work in the mines at all,” Okadiah observes good-naturedly as he sits across from Kanan. “I include you in that description.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less from an old miner.”

“Quite. Playing against yourself, I see?” he adds, nodding to the chessboard.

“Someone more fun than myself.”

“Really? And who would this strange someone be?”

“I wish I knew.”

That earns him a raised eyebrow.

“I don’t! I set up the board a few days ago, left a pawn in a starting position, and someone moved one of the other pieces. I never saw who did it, but I moved again and they moved the day after.”

“Sounds like a tale out of a children’s book,” Okadiah says. “Or a blooming romance.”

He makes a face. “It could be someone twice my age. Or worse, yours.”

“You wound me!” his boss cries, laying a hand to his chest.

He shakes his head, smiling at the older man’s antics. Okadiah may be his boss and landlord, but he seems to have taken a shine to him. Kanan, for his part, tends to avoid friendships- his drifter lifestyle makes them impractical and painful. Okadiah has become the exception to his rule.

They talk a while, theorizing on his mysterious opponent and the mines before jumping to more mundane topics. Then it’s time for him to return to the counter. He tugs on his worn, patched apron. Okadiah joins him behind the counter, and for once his shift is an agreeable one.

=====

Silver Motorcycle appears early today, streaking ahead of him as usual. Yet heavier traffic makes it impossible for even her to slip between lanes. She is instead reduced to waiting in the lines like the rest of the common folk. It’s almost surreal.

He takes the opportunity to examine her. Twin braids trail from beneath her heather gray helmet, colored bright with spring green dye. The helmet conceals much of her face, making it impossible for him to glimpse her features, but he can make out her hickory brown jacket and practical dark jeans. There’s a decal on her cycle that he can’t distinguish from this distance.

Strangely she seems to be moving in the same direction. Before he can be certain there’s a break in the traffic, and she’s lost to sight once more.

~~~

Kanan almost falls off his bike when he arrives in the parking lot. There’s a very familiar motorcycle parked not twenty feet away from the bike rack. 

He locks up his camo-green bicycle and glances inside the shop, curiosity warring with responsibility inside him. Ultimately his curiosity wins out, and he strolls toward the cycle. It’s a beautiful piece of machinery, sleek, its modifications integrated so well into its framework that you wouldn’t even know they were there if you didn’t know what to look for. The polished finish gleams pearl-silver in the sunlight. It doesn’t look expensive, but if anything that’s to its favor, its simple exterior deceptive of the power within. A ghostly cat with a Chesire grin crouches on the side. Beneath it bold script reads out a name: _ PHANTOM. _

No name could be more fitting, he thinks.

When he returns inside he doesn’t even notice the newly moved chess piece. Melodic laughter captures his attention, pulling his gaze to one of the booths. Silver Motorcycle sits with her helmet beside her, giving him full view of her high cheekbones and pert nose. The dye in her hair extends up to her cloudy gray Rylothian headwrap, and-

“KANAN!” one of his coworkers shouts. “Stop your dawdling and get over here!”

He responds with a resentful glare, but Okadiah isn’t here today. Waiting longer might mean forfeiting the raise he wants. Silver Motorcycle would be worth it… but she’s talking to her seatmate in low tones, and glares from the counter burn holes in his back. He hesitates. Then his arm is seized, an apron shoved into his hands, and he’s unceremoniously dragged behind the counter. Barely managing to keep himself from throwing a punch, he instead resorts to an indignant scowl. But his manager’s back is already turned as she marches off to reprimand the person responsible for the yell. With one last mournful glance at the woman of his dreams, he sets to work.

Between customers he sneaks glimpses of her. She’s talking to another woman, someone with the typical white hair, swarthy skin and stocky stature of the Sullustan people. They speak in secretive tones. He longs to know what they’re discussing. Sometimes notes of their voices rises above the hubbub. It’s easy to distinguish the characteristic rasp of the Sullustan’s voice, but what he hadn’t expected was the warm pitch of Silver Motorcycle’s. Her enchanting voice is as strong and commanding as a sorceress’s, rich and lustrous as honey.

A mere ten minutes before his shift ends they get up to leave. He moves to follow. His manager has other plans.

“Stop your gawking and wait your turn,” she hisses as she snags hold of his arm and hauls him back. “You can talk to pretty girls later.”

The words _ but she won’t be _ here _ later! _prick on the tip of his tongue, unspoken, as she turns to pounce on some other poor chap in the back. He can only watch as Silver Motorcycle pulls away and guns the engines, driving away and out of his sight in seconds.

=====

Traffic is better the next day, and the next. Police are patrolling the highways for the first time in all the time he’s ever been here. This doesn’t slow Silver Motorcycle down one bit: she flies through traffic as his truck lumbers on, a hare to his tortoise- except she would win the race by miles. He imagines her fine features beneath her helmet as she whizzes by. No one at the shop knew who she was, in spite of him asking everyone there- they could only tell him that she visited often, but early in the day.

Work becomes steadily more and more organized day by day, and he’s increasingly surprised. Usually accidents caused _ more _chaos, not less. Then, on the fourth day, he catches sight of a new superior watching from afar, stalking through the mines. It gives him pause. The articles had spoken of some cruel new overseer come to do business at the mines. Was this the famed Count Vidian?

He’s not authorized to go far enough in to find out. Besides, Kanan has cargo to haul and money to make, and so long as he can keep earning his pay he can hardly care what the boss intends.

~~~

She isn’t at the Belt the next afternoon, or the next, or the next, or any day after. He takes to watching her favored parking place, only to be disappointed every time he comes in.

His invisible opponent, meanwhile, is as active as ever. Kanan’s pretty sure he’ll win. They’re clever, with an eye for long-term planning. But some aspects of chess can’t be parsed by simple planning and wits. While it’s a worthy challenge, it’s not a very difficult one. All he needs to take the king is a few days.

Okadiah wanders over as he’s making his move. “Still going?” he asks in surprise.

“Yeah. Any idea who’s moving them?”

“Not in particular.”

===== 

Things at work are growing tense. Vidian isn’t well-liked. Silver Motorcycle has begun to appear more often, sometimes two or three times a day, but he never sees her at the shop. Watching her is enjoyable, but more and more he finds his thoughts occupied with the new boss. His coworkers squirm beneath Vidian’s tyrannical gaze, and Kanan doesn’t like the attitude of the woman in charge of the trucks either, even if she is attractive. There’s nothing to be done- his tongue is anything but silver, and this isn’t a problem for his fists. He does what he can to help his coworkers (though he won’t admit to it), and his ire rises as he watches Vidian demote and denounce workers for trivial appearances and minor infractions.

Something has to break eventually- but Kanan’s not sure he wants to be there when it does.

~~~

One day he returns to find the chessboard a mess.

Half the pieces lay toppled on the checkered battlefield. Spilled coffee stains the surface of the table besides it. Crumbs and pawns little the ground. His ivory soldiers lie prone in puddles of liquid the color of dry blood; the mysterious opponent’s men rest in sticky pools, their sharp black coats spattered in dirt-brown crumbs.

Kanan stares, uncomprehending.

It’s not as though he hadn’t thought of the possibility of someone using the board while he and his opponent faced off. But he had never considered finding it like _ this _, their methodical battle interrupted by an abrupt explosion of violence.

And they had been so close to finishing…

With a mournful sigh he walks to the counter and plucks a wet rag from the back. Okadiah joins him as he scrubs the tabletop, and watches him with an expression of pity.

“How’d this happen?” Kanan asks as he scrubs red from his knight.

“Children, I believe,” Okadiah says. “Terribly sorry about your game.”

He shrugs. “Kids will be kids.”

It takes a while to wipe down the pieces, sweep the crumbs from the floor and return the board to a state of order. Only then does he realize that he can’t remember the last positions of the pieces. He’s left staring at the board, wondering how he can fix such a disaster, before Okadiah gently directs him to the counter. “Perhaps you can start a new game,” he suggests, and Kanan nods.

He moves a piece before he heads upstairs for the night, but it’s not the same.

In the morning he slips a piece of paper beneath his chess piece.

_ To whoever’s playing me right now- _

_ A couple of kids messed up the board, and I don’t know our last positions. Put them back if you remember. If not, new game? _

It feels foolish, writing to someone he doesn’t even know. For all he knows they won’t see it, and even if they do they might not respond. He does it anyway. The note isn’t signed. No one will know it’s him.

=====

Silver Motorcycle is up early again. Kanan admires her as she sweeps through traffic, and flinches when a car nearly crashes into her. He hopes she’ll stay alive long enough for him to meet her. 

The mines are berserk, as usual, and tension hangs thick in the air. Whispers of hatred course through the whole place. Vidian’s in for it eventually. He only just avoided a scolding himself, so he’s on board with the brewing revolt. Someone needs to take the man down a peg or two.

As he leaves someone snags his arm. “Your truck’s in for mandatory repairs tomorrow,” he’s informed by a mechanic whose name he doesn’t know. “We don’t have an extra, so you can stay home for the day.”

Kanan blinks in surprise. Home? He doesn’t have much a _ home _to stay in. The mechanic whisks away before he can say anything. A day off doesn’t sound so bad, he decides, and mounts his bike to return to the shop.

~~~ 

A chess piece has moved.

_I don’t remember the original setup either. Let’s play._

He tries not to be too excited about the businesslike handwriting covering the back of his note. There’s no reason to be so into a match of chess.

~~~

When he requests for the next morning’s shift off, Okadiah says yes. He sleeps in late and takes his time getting ready. As he heads downstairs to snag breakfast he contemplates his options for the day. The city of Gorse is a terrible place for bikers, but the nearby preserves have a few paths he has yet to explore. The tiny public library, while outdated, isn’t the worst place to spend a day at either.

Kanan snags himself a pastry and a cup of chai tea from the kitchen before heading to the chess table, backpack slung over one shoulder.

Someone’s there already.

She looks up at him as he approaches, a black chess piece in her slender brown fingers, and tilts her head ever so slightly as she regards him. Her spring green braids brush gently against the back of her chair, and her emerald eyes contain the curiosity of a bird and the steadiness of a flame. Silver Motorcycle sets her piece down in a new square, and speaks. 

“Are you here to chat,” she says, not unfriendly but not inviting either, “or to ask if I’m available?”

“I’m here to move my chess piece,” he answers, heart racing. He lifts an eyebrow at her. “But I’m not sure why you think that putting your knight right in the path of a pawn was a wise idea.”

A wry smile crosses her lips, and she waves a hand at the seat across from her. “So you’re the mystery adversary.”

“And you’re the crazy driver who dodges semis for fun.” He settles into the chair, resisting the urge to throw her a winning smile. The way she welcomed him makes him think it wouldn’t be well received.

“You could say that.” She nods to the board. “Your move.”

He slides a pawn forward, earning a considering hum from the woman. “Are you sure that’s a smart idea?”

Kanan reconsiders his move, realizes he’s left an important piece wide open for capture, and tries to ignore the flush that warms his face. “Can I-”

“No take backs.”

He shoots her a half-pleading look. “Really?”

In answer, her sharp midnight soldiers strike down his cream white piece. 

“Can I at least find out the name of the person beating me?” he asks.

Silver Motorcycle’s lips curve upward. “Hera. And you are…?”

“Kanan Jarrus,” he answers quickly.

“Well, Kanan,” Hera says, as he lifts a piece from the board. “How about we find out if you’re as good at chess face-to-face as you are when you’re playing the long game?”

He grins, contemplating his army of gleaming cream soldiers. Their polish shines gold in the morning sunlight, and Kanan can already see a hundred ways this game of chess could progress.

“Lead on, Hera.”

**Author's Note:**

> So first of all: This took WAY longer than I thought it would. Originally it was a little snippet in my Docs that I picked back up. Having finished it and realized I wanted to post it, I began the editing process, starting with a rewrite... and now my already-considerable respect for longfic authors has increased tenfold. How do they do it?
> 
> I cannot thank you guys enough for the awesome feedback on Rest Easy! I never expected the wonderful outpouring of loveliness in the comments. You made my week! Thank you, thank you, thank you so much! <3
> 
> As well, here's a huge thank you to the Discord for helping me out here! I got plenty of advice on things like what drink Kanan would prefer (chai tea) and books and movies (Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones, and James Bond were a few), how to rewrite, and also just general motivation. You guys are the best!
> 
> And once again, a massive thank you to [stardustgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustgirl) for not only being one of the people who gave me great advice, but also being an extraordinary beta! <3


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